Telling Their Stories 2

TELLING THEIR STORIES By Steve Burrows He was sitting alone in a wheelchair in the large high-ceilinged room where windows at one end overlooked an urban street two floors below. This was the hospice ward a few years ago where I was a staff nurse. He was upset. Things were going wrong. On the floor below his feet were little puddles of serous fluid that had soaked through the bandages that wrapped up his oedematous legs. His advanced terminal cancer was knocking him about. But wet swollen legs weren't much; it could and would do better than that. For now, though, this pleasant gentleman in his sixties was embarrassed and distressed by this leakage. I told him I was coming to help him and not to worry. I put some urgency into it. I also prayed silently that my ministrations might be therapeutic; if not physically, then mentally. I gathered the required materials. I cleaned up the floor. I took off the old sodden dressings and pushed them into a plastic bag. Now for the bowl of warm water and emulsifying ointment; and the feet went in; and that was better. I put gauze squares into the water and used them to wipe over the fragile skin on his legs, and to pull between his toes to wash there. And after that I laid a towel on the floor for his feet to rest on, and unrolled some paper-towel to pat his limbs dry. There were a few dressing layers to re-apply. Non-adherent woven sheets went directly on to the skin. Next came two large absorbent pads. While I was wrapping these around his calf and ankle, and taping them in place, he remarked, "Forty years ago in Crystal Palace I worked opposite a place that made cladding. That was what Crystal Palace was known for, cladding. It's funny to think of that. I never would have thought it then. And look at me now." "And this reminds you of cladding?" I responded. He assented with a nod, and seemed to wonder at the returning scenes. When I left him a little later, with dry clean comfortably-bandaged legs, he was a more peaceful person. I was off-duty for the following few days, and when I came back he had died. "He went quickly," I was told. The way that memories visit us is interesting. In his book of talks for schoolgirls, 'The Gospel in Slow Motion' (page 6), Ronald Knox, the Catholic priest, wrote, " .....the